End of the line
by The Horseman
Summary: Beka reflects


Notes: Last in my series of four fics, about a relationship between Beka and Rommie. To be honest, you should read the first three if you want to understand this one fully. Obviously f/f, so if you want to leave now, no- one's going to hold it against you. The Cinema offers no refunds though. PG- 13 for some violence. Less funny than before, in case you're expecting the one-upmanship game I had going in the previous fics. four_horsemen_of_the_apocalypse@hotmail.com for appropriate worship of my glory g  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine.  
  
Thanks to: Far too many people. Mainly, Gina Dartt, whose 'Just Between' series showed me what good fanfic could achieve. And Reel Big Fish, who provided the background music to most of my writing time on these. And to everyone who reads this. Corny, but without you guys, what's the point?  
  
End of the line by the Horseman  
  
Beka crouched behind the support, and levelled a few more Magog with her blaster.  
  
She'd lost count of them, she really had. She couldn't even begin to keep up with the furry nightmares that swarmed through the bowels of the ship, overrunning the very depths of Andromeda. It was how they operated.  
  
She shuddered. Automatically, she kept on firing, moving in the evasive manoeuvre that Dylan had commanded, her mind shutting itself off from the horror around it.  
  
She loathed the Magog. At least with the Neiztcheians you could see that they were kinda human. There was something about their cold, ruthless way of war that was comforting. Reassuring. In a way, they were a very conservative people. They never changed in their basic desires, their basic philosophy in life - it sucked badly, so try and get the most out of it you can.  
  
Thoughts whirled their way around her exhausted mind, clashing into each other like atoms of air  
  
The Magog were different. Physically yes, but there was something deeper than that. They were alien. Their entire way of thinking was different from the other two species. They were like locusts, parasites on the face of the galaxy. They harvested other ships, other beings to keep their race surviving, and then discarded what they didn't need.  
  
She hated that. Beka had always known what she believed in, that everyone had a purpose in the galaxy. Admittedly, occasionally that purpose was to threaten her with death if she didn't pay Harry Mount the money she owed him, but that was another story. Besides, even that was reassuring. She occasionally missed the death threats. It was insane, but they'd become part of her life. She still stopped, once in a while, expecting some bounty hunter to pop out from behind the corner.  
  
She knew what her mind was really evading though.  
  
Oddly enough, she felt far less about the destruction of the ship than she'd ever thought she would. Over the months she'd spend as Dylan's Executive Officer, she'd grown fond of just mopping around the ship. She'd never told anybody, but sometimes she'd sneak out of her quarters in the middle of the night, and walk around the vessel, taking in the sheer beauty of the construction, and wanting to be 300 years older, romantically defending the mighty Commonwealth from it's enemies, making the space lanes safe for mankind.  
  
She'd always had those sorts of dreams as a kid. Not once had she been an Indian  
  
She'd never liked the ship though. Andromeda's main AI was bossy, occasionally cold and liked making trouble whenever it could to people it didn't like. And it wasn't too fond of Beka.  
  
Some part of her brain wondered if that was a symptom of her dislike of Andromeda. She constantly referred to the main AI as it. Not the 'she' that was reserved for Rommie....  
  
Rommie...  
  
Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered her lover, and the parting stride as the drop-dead beauty had departed, trying to find Rev Brem and drag him back out of temptation to a safe place, where he could be protected.  
  
She understood Dylan's remarks. They all knew that Rev clung to his religion by a fingernail, constantly tempted back to his old, brutal path.  
  
Turn, fire, duck, fire, turn, run, cover, run, fire, turn, run  
  
Even in the sadness of parting, she'd felt a twang of pride. The Captain.The Captain?.. had entrusted her Rommie with this dangerous mission. The part of her that kept her alive on smuggling runs told her that this was just sensible. She was the strongest person on the ship, capable of ripping a Magog's head off. She was also a fully qualified Commonwealth officer.  
  
That didn't matter though. Her Rommie, her heart had been entrusted with this important assignment. She felt a surge of pride in this.  
  
It still hurt like hell though. The thought that Rommie might be in danger somewhere, cut off from help and bleeding.......  
  
Turn and fire, duck and fire, run and fire, cover Dylan, turn, fire  
  
She thought about the Maru. Her home for all her life. Her command for 10 years. She thought about the old, reliably bad systems, the constantly breaking down computer. She thought about what the little bastards might be doing to it.  
  
Goddammit, it's like being attacked by psychopathic teddy bears  
  
Fire, fire, turn and fire, run and fire, cover and fire  
  
It came to her then, in the middle of a running battle with regiments of Magog, that she'd sacrifice anything to see Rommie safe again. Like an epiphany, she saw the truth. The Magog could have it all - the Maru, the Andromeda goddamn Ascendant, her quarters, her life, her world.  
  
If only they did nothing to Rommie  
  
Fire, fire, run, turn and fire  
  
How many rounds did she have left? She couldn't afford to check, the Magog were getting more numerous by the second. She blinked, and wondered. How much could she trust her own mind?  
  
Beka Valentine wasn't too sure about life anymore. She looked around, and saw Dylan covering her retreat towards Command, saw the innards of the Andromeda falling from the roof, saw the marauding hordes approaching her, rows upon rows of five-feet high demons. How far were they from the ladder taking them up a deck, closer and closer to the precious doors of Command? One thousand yards, two thousand, three?  
  
And the urge to find Rommie was almost overwhelming  
  
She'd never been in love before. Not the amount that she suddenly found for Rommie. She thought that she'd been in love, when she'd been younger and foolish. Then she'd realised that love was bad for business. It was bad for survival. Love could blind you to the truth that you needed to see, make you vulnerable to the attack around the corner.  
  
She stopped loving then. She loved the men and women as brothers and sisters, some of those that she'd taken to her bed she had adored as human beings, enjoyed their company and wished to see them again. She had lists of people, attached to every spaceport, the archetypical sailor.  
  
But she wouldn't die for them. She'd never take a pistol shot for John, never sacrifice herself to push Claire away from an oncoming vehicle. She lusted after both of them, but thought of them as kissing cousins, occasional lovers, nothing more.  
  
Run, fire, run, fire, cover, fire, turn, fire  
  
She wondered again if it was the exhaustion speaking. She saw the ladder a few hundred yards away, she must have run further than she'd thought.  
  
It was dark up ahead, the Magog must have taken out the light generators, or the connections or something. She took out a couple more, not feeling anything as she did so. The slight pleasure that had accompanied the falling of more of her vital enemies had now turned into a dull, brutal pain as she saw more of them rounding their way around the corner, ready to kill her if she was lucky, and harvest her body for their young if she was not.  
  
She questioned herself even as she defended her Captain and her ship. Had her survival instinct kicked in? She needed something to live for desperately, that was for sure. She'd known mercenaries that had stopped caring, they were pitiful sights.  
  
But that didn't feel right.  
  
She questioned the very nature of the relationship, as she ran further backwards, towards the precious steps, signifying freedom and hope. Initially, it had been sexual tension that had started their moving towards each other. Beka still remembered the day that Rommie had marched naked onto Command, stopping the descendents of the old Commonwealth officers from implementing their bastard son of a Commonwealth philosophy. Even as she'd stood, wondering what was going to happen next, she'd felt a stirring in her loins.  
  
She dismissed it first of all. She had a history of arousal at times of danger, it was weird but true. She'd always somehow gotten off from being in danger, it was one of the things that kept her in her father's old job.  
  
But over the course of the next few days, she realised that it was more. She wanted the avatar, lusted after her by day and dreamt of her by night.  
  
The ladder was a few hundred feet away. They could make it easily.  
  
That is if there weren't Magog already up there  
  
She motioned to Dylan, hoping like hell that he'd understand. He nodded, and she took the risk. Beka turned and quickly checked her ammunition. 15 rounds left. She better make them count.  
  
She turned, and looked around. Which Magog? She couldn't kill them all with just fifteen rounds. So many Magog and so few rounds she thought to herself, and smiled at the graveyard humour.  
  
She rolled over to Dylan, taking out some of the nearest Magog as she went, and yelled at him "15 left"  
  
He nodded, and replied "10"  
  
They seemed to understand each other at the time, and both broke off from shooting at that point, pounding their way down the metal decks towards the ladder.  
  
Magog couldn't charge faster than humans. It was a command decision, she thought to herself. A command decision. Maybe she should get the uniform.  
  
Rommie might like it. Another smile. Her girlfriend had always had a fetish for that sort of thing.  
  
They made it to the ladder about three seconds ahead of the Magog, and Beka charged up it faster than she'd ever moved before, jumping up the last five steps. She slammed the remote button, and the safety door slammed shut behind her, almost cutting her foot off.  
  
She turned to see Dylan jogging down the corridor already, and quickly sprinted to keep up with him.  
  
Goddammit, I'm getting too old for this  
  
As she jogged, her mind distanced herself from her surroundings again, and she wondered what Rommie was doing. She could just picture her lover taking out Magog after Magog, rescuing Rev, Tyr and Harper, and generally making a hero out of herself.  
  
She smiled, even as the salty taste of sweat invaded her mouth.  
  
Just like Rommie  
  
In a bizarre sort of way, she was glad for what had happened. Their game of one-upmanship was now at a halt, for a while longer. And considering how Beka had been strapped for ideas, this definitely counted as a good thing. How the hell was she meant to compete against Rommie? Who could download every position in the Karma Sutra at will...  
  
Her survival instincts kicked in, desperately battering at the door into her conscious thought. She stopped, and listened carefully.  
  
A slow, soul breaking whine came to her, grunts and groans followed.  
  
Magog. Large party. 500-odd metres and closing.  
  
She turned to warn Dylan, and saw that he'd already heard, and had begun to assume the attack manoeuvre. She instantly sprung into the counterpart position, and waited for the Magog to arrive.  
  
She tried not to think about Rommie as she did so. As much as she wanted to find the avatar right now, she couldn't stop thinking about how any moment might be her last.  
  
They hadn't even had time to say a proper good-bye.  
  
No, that was a lie. Rommie had shot her a look before she left to find Rev. It had been one of those looks that spoke simple words, and yet was a masterpiece in emotional communication at the same time.  
  
It was a look that said everything, the look that explained why she was considering the relationship in the first place. It was a look filled with worry, compassion, understanding and want at the same time. But most of all, it was a look that explained everything.  
  
I love you Rommie had seemed to say. Come back to me  
  
To hell with the 15 rounds. She was coming back.  
  
Beka Valentine took her position.  
  
And stared into the jaws of hell. 


End file.
